Living on Borrowed Timeline
by agrader
Summary: Following on from the 2011 movie; James Millman wakes up in an unfamiliar room and is found by Arrietty, who doesn't seem to remember him ... in the Twilight Zone


For a young boy named James Millman, the line between science fiction and science fact has been somewhat blurred. He has seen tiny people living in his grandmother's house. He's met them, talked with them, helped them, and said goodbye to them. But for James Millman, the bizarre is only just beginning, as he spends a little Borrowed Time in … the Twilight Zone.

"Grandma! What's happened to my room?" called James.

The boy had just awoken to find that his entire room looked unfamiliar. The ceiling looked like it was made of plain planks of wood, instead of the familiar painted décor which he remembered so well. The tables were round objects, and the bed was more like an oversized cushion. Even the doorway wasn't in the right place, and the door seemed to be missing.

He kept calling his Grandmother to no avail, and eventually decided to go and see what had become of her, not to mention what had become of her house. He walked out the doorway and found that the corridor seemed very dark. Could he have slept in all day? Had he not slept enough, so that it was not yet daylight? He felt about for the light switch, yet wondered where to feel for it, since everything seemed to be out of place. In the end, he decided to feel his way along the corridor, until he came to any form of light or opening.

After he had gone several meters and around a corner, he came to a large crack in the wall, and looked out into a gigantic version of his grandmother's living room. It was perfect in every detail, except for the huge size of it. He began to think frantically, to try to figure out what was going on. There was something familiar to him now, about that unfamiliar room he had awoken in. Then it struck him. It looked like a life size version of the Borrowers' room, which he had briefly seen, just before his Grandmother had trashed it with a sharp blade and driven the tiny Borrowers out. But if the lounge room looked giant sized, and the Borrowers' room looked life sized, then what if the only one out of step was James himself?

There was only one possible explanation. Somehow he had become the size of a Borrower. Yet even that didn't explain the intact state of their room. Suddenly a girl came into the lounge room. She was years older than him, full sized, a giant in his case, and yet she shouldn't be.

"Arrietty!" he exclaimed aloud.

The pretty girl heard him and walked over and lay down and peeked in through the hole in the wall at him.

"My, but you're a small one, aren't you? You must have been listening in on Mum and me, to know my name like that, but that's alright."

"I always knew your name. You and I are best friends."

"A tiny boy? I think I'd have remembered you."

"But you do remember me."

"I'm afraid not. It's always been just Mum and me here, ever since Dad made a fatal mistake while doing a Podcast commentary on that comedy show 'The R.E. Generation'."

"Do you really not know me?"

"Not a bit. You're a cute little boy though."

"We've swapped," he thought, "I'm a Borrower, and she's a human being."

"Come and see my room," she said.

"I think I'll have already seen it," said James, "But if it's YOUR room, Arrietty, I think we could have fun when you show it to me."

He stepped out into her awaiting fingers and was carried up the familiar stairs to his … her room. It looked much as he remembered it, except that it was filled with girl's things instead of his own. She sat on the bed.

"Let's play catch," she said, and tossed him up into the air, almost as far as the ceiling.

He fell down again and landed on her dress, which she had pulled out to catch him.

"That was scary … but it was awesome!" he said.

She did it again and again, and then threw him up in a slightly different direction, and opened her mouth far below him.

"Arrietty!" he called, looking down into her outstretched mouth.

She snatched him from his fall, just before he reached her mouth.

"What if I'd fallen in?" he asked.

"You would have made me cough."

Whatever had happened, his Grandmother wasn't around to be part of the way things were in the Twilight Zone. Arrietty lay down with her head on the pillow, just as he had once done. This time he was the tiny one beside her huge smiling head.

"We should try tossing marshmallows," she said, "I've got a whole bag. Have some."

She sat up and reached for a bag of marshmallows on her bedside table, and tipped some out beside him.

"You mean toasting marshmallows? We don't have a fire."

"Not toasting. Tossing. Watch out!" she laughed, and threw one at him, hitting him squarely in the chest.

He threw one at her face. Even at his size, he could easily lift light soft lollies and fling them into the air. He made several successful efforts to dodge her next throws, being small and hard to hit. He realised how much he liked things this way. It was much more fun with her being the big one and him being the Borrower. After they'd exhausted themselves, she gave him some pulpy orange juice, and he relished the chance to drink exponentially more than the single glass he had normally been allowed at any one time at normal size. It was very tangy and worth making the most of, even though it took some effort to drink it from her relatively giant sized glass.

"I guess I'd better get you home," she said, "Do you live in the wall?"

"I have a little room under your living room floorboards," he said, still coming to terms with it.

James Millman found himself on the brink of understanding why the corridor had seemed to be going up a slope when he had been stumbling around in the dark.

He hadn't been sure of the incline at the time, unable to see anything, but it made sense that the corridor in the wall would have to go uphill to lead from under a room to a hole in that room's wall which was level with its floor.

Arrietty picked him up, ran down the stairs and into the living room and crouched down and put him beside the hole in the wall.

"Did you have an interesting day with me?" she asked.

He remembered an expression he had once heard his Grandmother use, and made fun of it.

"Arrietty is the spice of life," he said.

"Home James. That's about the funniest thing I can say in return."

He had told her his name on her pillow earlier.

"Will I see you again, Arrietty?" he asked.

"I hope so," she said.

He waved goodbye and felt his way back to the little room. There was enough light shining between the floorboards to light the room, but the corridor outside was still dark. He got onto his little bed and wondered if things would ever go back to normal. He kept replaying his memories of his past experiences with Arrietty, before any of today's even more unusual events had happened. Yet he could come up with nothing to explain the size reversals or Arrietty's unfamiliarity with him. It occurred to him that he had not known her when they had first met, when he had been full sized. Maybe it was only fair that things start off similarly in this situation.

Suddenly he felt the uncontrollable need to burp. He thought that this would alleviate the tension in his belly, but it only made him feel the need to burp even harder … and louder. It went on and on, and he eventually guessed that the giant dose of orange juice had set him off. He wondered if it would ever stop, but every time he tried to ignore it and resist the urge to belch, the pain threatened to overwhelm him.

"What IS that?" came a woman's voice from above."

"Maybe there's a frog outside, Mum," came the voice of Arrietty.

"Nonsense, my dear. That sound came from under the floor!" said the woman.

To take his mind off the urge to continue gastronomically telegraphing his presence, James tried to remember the woman's name from his previous encounters with the Borrowers. Oh yes, it was Homily Clock.

BELCH! … Belch.

"That does it! I'm not going to listen to that all night, while I'm trying to read!" called Homily.

"Mum, no! Just think what you'll do to the property value!" called Arrietty.

He heard loud footsteps heading towards what was his roof and a particular part of their floor. He backed away to the door, as he heard her levering up the floorboards with the back of a hammer head. He looked up at towering Homily Clock. She dropped her hammer on what remained of her floor and snatched up her torch.

"You size small squatter! I'll bet you were rejected from the cast of Very Little British and took up unpaid residence here! I'll fetch you out!" she said.

He was about to call out 'Homily, it's me', when he recalled that Arrietty had not seemed to know who he was, nor that their relative sizes had ever been the opposite. It would not be any easier to convince Homily. He took one last look up at the pretty girl and her mother and then darted into the corridor. Homily turned her head side on and lowered it into the little room and then lunged for the corridor with her free hand, while the other shined the torch. He tried to find his way out of her reach, but could see nothing in the corridor, as her torch only illuminated the room a little more than the floorboard spaces had done. In seconds, her huge hand found and seized him, pulled him out of the corridor and the little room and up into her own living room. She threw the torch on the couch, stormed out of the living room and into another room, released her grip on him, and let him fall into a lukewarm pot of boiled cabbage.

"Mum, no!" called Arrietty.

"Who works hard to take care of you, while this little freeloader helps himself to my living space and can't even be quiet about it?" said Homily, using both hands to place the pot on the stove and turning it on, "I think it's time I had a treat for once, and it'll take care of our unwanted guest at the same time."

Arrietty tried to struggle past her mother to free him from the pot, but Homily shoved her aside and slapped her face.

"The Clock struck one daughter," he thought, "Homily has no memory of what it was like to be a Borrower herself. To her, she probably never was one."

He lay on warm cabbage, listening to Arrietty leaving the room in tears, and the subsequent sound of Homily slamming the door and turning the key in its lock. Then he saw Homily's face staring from high above the pot, and her arm reach in with a wooden spoon and begin to stir the cabbage, moving him too a little occasionally.

"I'll be the one making with the burps soon, lad," she said, "And you'll be the reason."

"If I were your size, I'd CLOCK you one," said James.

Homily removed the spoon, picked up the pot and turned it upside down and emptied its contents into a bowl. He managed to land on a cushion of cabbage which had overtaken him during the few seconds of descent, and looked up at her as she took the bowl over to the table and sat down. She reached for a table spoon, used it to eat all of the cabbage, and then downed a glass of water. Then she spooned him up too and into her mouth.

"Borrower meets Swallower," he thought.

And so a story told the wrong way around for giantess fans for many years is finally inverted; leaving Pod Serling here to sign off, from the Twilight Zone.


End file.
